Edgewater Leaders Consider Future of License Plate Technology

Edgewater’s last city council meeting started with a public comment by a city resident, Debbi Spranza, who made an animated plea to the body to cancel the city’s contract with Flock.  At issue is whether the city’s police department should continue to use technology that reads license plates amid concerns raised by civil liberties and immigration advocacy organizations. 

On Tuesday, August 19th, Spranza said she was “not in favor of continuing the use of the Flock cameras in Edgewater.” She criticized the Trump administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s deportation efforts, including “arresting people without permanent legal status outside of immigration courts and arresting many people with no criminal records.”

The meeting concluded with the council reaching a consensus that the city should continue to monitor the local and national context and reconsider any changes at a future worksession. In the immediate term, the council will not consider terminating the use of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) technology. 

After a nearly 90-minute conversation, Council Member Lilly Steirer noted she felt overwhelmed and wanted the council to keep an eye on the issue. Mayor Conklin concurred with the sentiment before inviting each council member to weigh in. Council Member Gay Keao asked the police chief to develop a retention policy for audits of the city’s use of Flock’s product. Council Member Joie Iten shared that she had a car stolen and appreciated the use of the technology in her investigation. She said, “I am kind of more pro this program than against it,” opining that ALPR technology seems to have more value to local law enforcement agencies solving crimes than it helps bad actors.

The working session in Edgewater took place amid statewide and nationwide concerns over Flock’s ALPR technology. 

Last month, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado and 16 coalition partners released a statement raising alarm about Loveland’s police department sharing data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and that “Denver data was searched more than 1,400 times for ICE since June 2024.” In May, the Denver City Council unanimously cancelled the city’s future contract with Flock, but the cameras are still being used as a Task Force convenes to study the topic, according to Denver7. The controversy extends beyond Colorado and also raises questions about surveillance and citizens’ rights to privacy. The ACLU nationally opined:

“Flock is building a dangerous nationwide mass-surveillance infrastructure, as we have been pointing out for several years now. The problem with mass surveillance is that it always expands beyond the uses for which it is initially justified — and sure enough, Flock’s system is undergoing insidious expansion across multiple dimensions. If your community adopts this technology, you need to know it’s doing more than just recording what car is driving where and at what time.”

However, concerns raised by immigration and personal privacy advocates coexist with the reality that ALPR technology has been used to solve crimes, both in Edgewater and nationwide. A peer-reviewed study of Atlantic City’s implementation of ALPR found: “While the ALPR expansion did not reduce violent crime, it was associated with reductions in shootings, motor vehicle thefts, and property crime.” Similarly, a randomized controlled trial in Arizona found that ALPR increased the number of license plates scanned, the number of people arrested, and the number of vehicles recovered.

Edgewater’s Police Chief, Randy McNitt, provided both data and case studies to illustrate how ALPR is used to deliver justice for victims of crime in our community as well. That included pointing out that:

• Early in August, Flock data from other police agencies in Colorado was used to corroborate a domestic violence victim’s timeline. The victim came to the Edgewater Police Department after a harrowing automobile ride at gunpoint, and the suspect was arrested after Flock data was consulted.
• In separate incidents in June and July of this year, city police officers, aided by Flock, recovered stolen vehicles within city limits for two different victims.
• In 2023, the city of Edgewater posted on social media that, within 45 days of using the Flock technology, they had recovered a dozen stolen vehicles. 

The city’s chief of police began the council work session by briefing the council on the facts and presenting a transparent example of how he and his department utilize the technology. The city signed a five-year contract with Flock in 2023; previously, a different license plate system was used. Today, six cameras around the city are used to read license plates. Use of license plate readers for criminal investigations is guided by state law and department policy (which was provided to the public ahead of the meeting). Colorado has the highest rate of motor vehicle thefts in the nation, according to a primer from the Colorado Division of Criminal Justice. 

Chief McNitt, who assumed the job in March, told the council, “Our department personnel do not use this for any unauthorized purpose. We only use it for official and legitimate law enforcement business,” and later that the technology is a “cost-effective tool that we use to get justice for victims, justice for
crime victims, and to protect our citizens, which is a big part of our mission.”

While the city only has six cameras, McNitt reported that the city shares its Flock data with other law enforcement agencies across the state; in turn, those cities share their Flock data with Edgewater. The city retains the right to decide with whom to share data, and does not currently share its Flock data with anyone outside the state.

But McNitt’s original briefing did not disclose that up until one month ago, the city was sharing its Flock data with agencies across the country. He said he only recently disabled Edgwater’s data from being shared nationally after hearing concerns from city leaders. That disclosure from McNitt only came after questioning by Council Member Hannah Gay Keao, who had been keeping an eye on the list of governments Edgewater shares its data with; Gay Keao had noticed a change recently and pressed McNitt for answers.

Ultimately, the council determined that the city would continue the contract it signed in 2023 to use license plate reading technology from FLOCK. The environment has shifted since 2023, though, which Sponta and Council Member Hannah Gay Keao acknowledged. Both supported the city’s adoption of Flock’s ALPR technology in 2023, which occurred amid concerns raised by residents over carjackings.